


Mishap Misery

by LovingAlex



Series: "Hello, Dean" [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Retail, Cas works at Gander Mountain, Castiel is a Sweetheart, Clumsy Castiel, Dean is a Sweetheart, Dean's a repeat customer, Embarrassed Castiel, Gen, POV Castiel, Sam can see what's goin on, aren't you proud of me?, no prompts used this time!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 16:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovingAlex/pseuds/LovingAlex
Summary: Five times things went incredibly wrong and the one time things went incredibly right.Aka Dean keeps coming into Gander Mt. and Cas helps him, but every time he does, something goes wrong. 5+1





	Mishap Misery

**Author's Note:**

> I may have promised a Hamlet esk story, but it was taking me a while because I had taken to scrolling through the play in it's entirety. Then I started a retail job and this bombarded my brain soooo... I've been working on it every Thursday since. I've also been working on another, much longer, project, but don't expect to see that one anytime soon (unless I cave and post a few chapters XD)

DAY 1: Monday.

 

Mondays are days when Cas opens the local Gander Mountain he works at. Walking up to the back door, Cas notices a person waiting for him. On closer look, it was Sabrina, a coworker.

“Good morning, Sabrina. You’re early today,” he greets her as he unlocks the door. She shrugs.

“Jacob needed me to fill in as a cashier today, so I came early to count the registers.”

 

It didn’t take long to get things ready and open up, before Cas knew it, the first customer was strolling through the doors. And what a customer it was. In walked a tall, rather handsome, man with dirty blond hair and freckle splattered tan skin.

Cas goes up to him and offers his assistance. The man tells Cas (in an appealing voice to match his exterior) that he’s looking for a medium sized water jug, but isn’t sure if they sold it there. Cas reassures him, then leads him to where they are. It’s almost time for summer activities to start so there’s a big sale on them, with a stacked display and everything.

“These only say small, medium, etcetera. How do you know how much each size holds?” the man asks. Cas looks closer at the labels.

“The small say 2 gallons, the medium are 8 gallons, large are 15…” Cas has to crouch down and turn the extra large jug in order to read it. “The extra large is 20 gallons.”

He stood and went to turn back to the man with, “Which size do you need?” but was cut off half way. He was expecting to face the man, but not so much expecting to come nose to nose with him. So close, he had to go cross eyed.

Startled, he jumped back, accidentally bumping into the display and sending jugs rolling every which way. He hisses a cuss in another language before chasing after them. The man helped Cas gather them back to where they were kept.

“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you, uh,” the man paused to look at Castiel’s name tag, “Castiel.” The man offered his hand to shake. “I’m Dean. Sorry again.”

It’s alright. I’ll just have Sabrina, the assistant manager, help me re-stack them.”

The man grabs two small jugs, sending one last apologetic look before leaving. After all that, Cas spends the rest of the day feeling like a doofus.

 

DAY 2: Tuesday

 

Dean shows up again the next day, but this time right before closing. Sabrina sends him a dirty look, but Cas chalks it up to her wanting to leave.

Cas notices that Dean is also nursing a cup of coffee. Cas assumes he’s preparing for an all nighter, and asks him if he needs any assistance again.

“Well, I don’t even know if you guys still have or sell any, but I need a few bags of salt.”

Bags of salt have been out of season for a few months, so Cas wasn’t sure if they had any left or not. “I’m not sure if we have any left, but we can go just over there and check.” Cas ushered Dean to an aisle to the left of the door and a few down. Luckily, there were five bags left on the far end of a lower shelf.

“Just two should be fine,” Dean said as he lifted a bag to hold it like a football. He paused and looked at the cup occupying his other hand. Before he could decide on what to do, Cas stooped down and grabbed a second bag.

While making their way to the registers, Cas adjusted his grip. When he did so, there was a ripping sound and the bag fell apart at the seams. The salt spilled everywhere. There was a mound on the floor half covering Castiel’s shoes, residue all over Cas, and a cloud of it in the air.

“Oh shit! It must’ve had a tear! You didn’t get any in your eyes did you?”

Cas waved the cloud away with his hand in order to dispel it. He inhaled a bit, but other than that, he was alright. “N-no, I’ll be fine.”

Dean gave him a skeptical look, as if he didn’t believe him, but after a moment he gave in. “If you say so, but let me at least help you clean this up. I’m partly responsible anyways.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get the janitors to help me. They  should be coming tonight anyways,” Cas dismissed, grabbing a different bag. “I’ll ring you up myself.”

“Are you sure? It’ll be faster if I helped,” Dean insisted. Cas declined again and set his bag down at the closest register.

Dean asked two more times before Cas finally handed him his receipt.

“You really _really_ sure?” he asked one last time.

Cas chuckled. “I’m 100% positively sure. Now go home, Dean. It’s late.” Dean gave Cas a mock suspicious look that broke out into a friendly grin.

“Fine, I guess I’ll leave ya to it.” He picked up both of the salt bags in one arm and left. Cas followed to lock the door behind him.

“So we have Janitors now? I don’t think I was at that interview.”

Cas turned around to face Sabrina.

“Or is it that my name is ‘Janitors’ now?” she continued in her teasing tone. Cas just shyly rubbed the back of his neck at her crossed-arms stance.

She sighed, her whole body drooping in defeat. “Come on, let’s get this over with so I can go home.”

Cas smiled, then lead the way to the cleaning supplies.

 

…

 

It took them a while to sweep it all up and mop the area.

Cas held the door open for Sabrina to leave first and so he could lock the door. When he turns around, Sabrina is still standing there, looking at the ground with a troubled expression. “What’s wrong?” he asks in concern.

Well, uh…” she pauses and bites her lip, “nevermind. It’s nothing. Good night, Castiel.” She turns and leaves without another word.

Cas shook off his concern and curiosity, heading home with one goal in mind. To plop down on his bed and _sleep._

 

DAY 3: Wednesday

 

Cas is walking around the store in order to fix things out of place, when he spots Dean. He’s talking to a rather tall man with shoulder length hair. The two of them are fumbling around trying to figure out the best way to carry the wooden tent stakes in their arms.

“Hello, Dean. Good afternoon, sir,” he greeted them each in turn. “Would you like a cart to put those in?” He couldn’t hide the amusement in his voice. The two large men were truly a sight to behold as they just barely manage to hold all of the different stakes.

Dean smiled and seemed to deflate in relief. “Yeah, Cas. That would be great.” The other man sent Dean a raised eyebrow look before adding in. “We ended up picking out more than we had thought.”

Cas decided to ignore the look, instead opting to say, “It happens to everyone,” before briskly walking away to get a cart.

On his way back over, Cas accidentally bumped into a stand of mannequins. The bottom one rocked a few times before tipping over and causing a domino effect on the others. Cas watched, frozen in place as the top most one toppled back, the fishing pole in it’s hand smacking into the taxidermied moose head that hung above the display.

Thankfully, the head went flying right into the tall man’s arms. The stakes he was holding clattered against the tiled floor.

“I’m so sorry! Is everyone alright!” Cas gasped, more worried about someone getting hit by a falling object than any of the things that fell.

“We’re fine, but I don’t think this guy is,” Dean answered as he toed a head from one of the mannequins that came apart in the fall. Cas quickly scrambled to pick up all the pieces.

As he was doing so, Dean helped by standing up the ones that were still in one piece and (after giving the moose head an odd look) his companion helped out too.

“I’m so sorry. Thank you for the help, let me repay you with a discount for your trouble.”

The taller man opens his mouth to say something, but Dean cuts him off. “Don’t worry about it, no harm done. We couldn’t just leave you to clean up that mess alone. Not after you refused my help last night.” Dean places a reassuring hand on Castiel’s shoulder and another look is sent Dean’s way by his friend. Cas elects to ignore it even though he’s curious as to what the man is trying to convey.

Cas gives in and the two men go on their way to get checked out. Dean gives him a charming smile that leaves Cas with a small smile for the rest of the day.

 

…

 

Once Sabrina is done with what she was doing, she comes and helps Cas place the mannequins back where they belong and hold the ladder so he can rehang the moose head.

“What’s got you smiling so much?” she asks from below him. Cas hangs the moose, then looks down at her.

“Have I been? I hadn’t noticed.” She raises a sceptical brow at him.

“Sure you haven’t.”

 

DAY 4: Thursday

 

Castiel isn’t surprised to see Dean again the next day. This time, he’s in the weaponry section and looking rather frustrated. Cas better ask him what’s wrong. “Hello, Dean. Do you need help with anything?”

 

Dean looks up from glaring at the boxes of ammo and a smile splits his face as soon as he recognizes Cas. “There you are, I knew you’d show up eventually,” he gestures towards the boxes, “I’m looking for shell casings, but I’ve only found actual ammo.” With an understanding nod, Cas leads him over a few aisles to where they are placed. Dean crouches down to look through them.

After a moment of searching, he stands up, holding a box. “I’m pretty sure these are probably them, but I can’t tell what size they are cause someone put the price sticker over the info,” he grumbles.

“That’s alright, it shouldn’t hurt for me to open it and take a peek inside. You’ll most likely be buying them afterwards anyways.” Dean passes Cas the box and he proceeds to try and open it. However, the box doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. Cas put a little more force into his pull. The box opens, but Cas was applying so much force, it flings the shells up into the air and scattering across the floor. The situation reminds Cas of those times where people try to open chip bags and the chips go everywhere.

Sadly, the shells are way more bouncy than chips. Instead of just landing on the tile and rolling, they bounce away in every direction. All Cas can do is sigh dejectedly as he watches them. Unlike him, Dean hurries to catch the scrambling shells. Cas starts to help pick them up, saying, “I’m sorry about this. I’ve been really clumsy lately.”

“It’s fine, really. My little brother used to be a major clutz when he was growing up, so I’m used to it,” Dean chuckles, Cas finds himself rather taken by the sound of Dean’s laugh. “Sammy was all gangly limbs, the lil’ string bean. Hell, now he’s just upgraded from a bean to a full on stalk!” With that, they both place the last few shells that they could find into the box. “Yep, these are the right size.”

“Oh, does that mean the man who was with you yesterday was your brother.” Cas grabs an identical box for Dean before walking him to the weapon counter.

“Sure was. Sam’s a freaking sasquatch.” This info shouldn’t make Cas feel as relieved as he does. What is he even relieved over? That Dean has a brother? Cas doesn’t know, so he ignores it. Cas rings him up and hands Dean the box and his receipt. Dean turns to leave, but pauses and turns back to him.

 

“Thanks for the help again, Cas… And, uh, don’t beat yourself up too much, everyone has one of those weeks.”

 

The reassurance accompanied by such a nice smile causes a warmth to spread through Cas. It’s as if a weight was taken off his shoulders just by Dean’s words.

 

…

 

A while later, when Sabrina comes to switch places with him in the weaponry department, she hands him a few of the shells that he and Dean missed. “Do you know why these were on the floor over by fishing?”

 

Cas huffs a laugh. “Just a little incident. Speaking of, do you know who put the labels on the boxes of ammo shells?”

 

Sabrina makes a humming noise while she tries to recall who it was. “I think it was the new guy. What’s his name? Allen?”

 

Cas sighs again. “I’ll have to go back and tell him to watch where he puts the stickers, they are covering up the sizes on the boxes.” He leaves, hearing Sabrina laugh about it behind him.

 

DAY 5: Friday

 

That Friday is a surprisingly slow one compared to usual. But low and behold, Dean shows up once again. Cas is working behind the weaponry counter again when Dean saunters up with a smile and a bit of a limp. “Heyya Cas, we meet again,” he jokes.

 

“Hello, Dean. What are you looking for today?” Cas asks as he moves over to Dean who stands in front of the knife area of the display.

 

“A good silver knife. One that won't get broken like my last one.” He sounds rather bitter about what happened.

 

Cas helps point out each of the knives that are made of or coated in silver. Dean immediately picks out a bone handled one that’s molded to fit into your hand. It has an eight inch blade and comes with a dark brown leather sheath. Cas has to admit that Dean has good taste.

 

It’s so far so good as Cas checks Dean out at the weaponry counter’s cash register. It’s when the receipt goes to print, when the usual misfortune turns its ugly head.

 

The receipt is half printed when the machine jams. Cas pulls the paper free, but the machine goes on the fritz, shooting out all the blank paper it has in it. Cas fumbles and flails, getting wrapped up in the paper as he tries to get it to stop. The machine finally runs out of paper, leaving Cas covered in the aftermath.

 

Dean muffles his laughter with a closed fist. “Well jee, Cas. I didn’t know it was Halloween already. Nice mummy costume.” Cas sends him a bitch face that could rival the ones from his brother the other day.

 

Cas sighs once again. “Why does this keep happening? It’s as if I’ve been jinxed,” he grumbles. He doesn’t notice how Dean goes rigid at his words.

 

Freeing one of his hands, Cas uses the intercom to call Sabrina over to help reload the machine (which decided to go back to normal once it ran out of paper) while he cleans up the paper. It only takes a moment for her to show up. She restocks the paper and prints Dean’s receipt. Dean gives her an odd look before saying goodbye to Cas.

 

DAY 6: Saturday

 

It’s closing time and Dean has yet to show. Castiel will never admit that he’s disappointed about this. Maybe Dean did come, but Cas missed him? Cas really needs to get ahold of himself. Dean is just a customer. End of story.

 

Cas walks across the dimly lit parking lot after closing up. He goes to unlock his car, but he’s so distracted with thoughts of Dean, he drops his keys. As he stands back up, he comes nose to nose with Sabrina.

 

He jumps in surprise. “Sabrina! You startled me!” He looks around the empty parking lot, his car being the only one in sight. “What are you still doing here? If you needed a ride, you could’ve told me.” Cas puts a comforting hand on her shoulder

 

In a blink of an eyes, Sabrina’s face becomes a mere inch from Cas’s. “Uh… Sabrina?” he asks, uncertain and uncomfortable with this turn of events.

 

Sabrina walks her fingers up his chest while speaking in a low and sultry voice, “I’ve been biding my time, but due to circumstance, I gotta do this now…”

 

“D-Do what?” Cas grows increasingly anxious about her advances, leaning as far back from her as he can. He won’t pretend to not have noticed her frequent glances and stares his way, but he never thought that she’d suddenly be this straight forward.

 

“Well… I’ve had my eye on you since you got here. You’re quite a unique lil’ someone, aren’t you?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean, Sabrina. Look, you’re a nice person, but…” Cas is cut off by a malous gleam that appears in Sabrina’s eyes.

 

“Don’t play coy with me, _Castiel_.” Her tone changes to match her glare.

 

It’s then that Castiel connects the dots. Sabrina isn’t who she says she is and she knows Cas isn’t either. “So you’ve noticed… What’re you planning to do with me, then?”

 

Sabrina hooks a finger on one of the buttons of his shirt. “Oh nothing big, just pluck your feathers and keep you as a sexy little pet so that I can milk your essence like livestock.”

 

Cas internally berates himself for not figuring out her intentions before now. How could he have been so careless?

 

“If you want to use me, you’ll have to catch me first!”

 

Cas tries his luck by shoving her as hard as he can. She slams against his car door and lands on her ass. But she’s now blocking the chance for him to get away using his car, so he turns and runs back toward the store. He can use stuff in there to defend himself. Anything is better than nothing.

 

Cas is a little over half way there before something grabs his leg from behind and slams him onto the ground. The air is knocked out of him and his nose starts to bleed from the impact. His mind sluggish and his hearing foggy.

 

Sabrina looks livid as she straddles Cas’s back and pins his arms behind him. “We don’t have time for this, handsome.”

 

There’s a loud rumbling noise rapidly coming closer, squealing tires, a shout, a gunshot then the weight on Cas’s back vanishes.

 

Next thing he knows, someone has him rolled over onto his back, is cushioning his head, and asking questions that he can’t understand around the pounding in his head and ringing in his ears.

 

There’s a few more shouts and another gunshot before a second figure appears next to the one questioning him.

 

Everything starts to come into focus. Cas recognizes Dean immediately, followed by Sam who stands over them. Dean is the one supporting his head and asking worried questions.

 

“Dean?... Sorry, but we’re closed…” Cas mumbles

 

Dean chuckles, “that’s not exactly why we’re here this time, Cas”

 

This confuses Cas, but his head hurts too much to question their motives. Dean helps him up and into the back seat of an old, and rather large, black car. He tosses Sam the keys and exchanges a pointed look with him before Dean climbs into the back to sit next to Cas. He uses a washcloth that Cas hadn’t noticed him grab, to clean up the blood that thankfully stopped streaming out of Castiel’s nose.

 

“Where do you live? We’ll drop you off.”

 

“But what about my car? And what about Sabrina? Do you know what she is?” Cas says, muffled by the washcloth.

 

It’s then that Sam pipes up from the front. “She’s a witch. At least she was. Don’t worry, I got rid of her. You’re safe now.”

 

“A witch named Sabrina… I don’t know if that’s ironic or just cliche,” Dean grumbles, finishing cleaning Cas up.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“You don’t… Never mind.” Dean shakes his head, but Cas is still confused.

 

…

 

When they got to Cas’s place, Dean helps him up the steps to his small apartment. “I’m not sure if you have a concussion or not, so you might want to get it checked out”

 

“Thank you, Dean, but you didn’t answer my question earlier. What about my car?” Castiel asks, standing in the open doorway of his house.

 

“Right. Don’t worry about it, we’ll bring it back for you. Gotta go back there anyways.”

 

Cas nods in understanding, but regrets it immediately because it sends a shot of pain through his head. “Yes, you still have to burn the body.”

 

Dean pauses, “How… How did you know that?”

 

Castiel makes quick calculations to see if he should tell Dean the truth or not. “Well… I assume that you and your brother are hunters. You are in town to take care of a witch, who turned out to be Sabrina. Now that she’s dead, you’ll need to burn the body.”

 

Dean steps closer and places a hand high on the door frame next to Castiel’s head. “And How do you know all this?”

 

“I’ll tell you if you promise not to kill me,” he hums.

 

“Now what could you tell me that’d make me want or need to kill you?” Dean asks, curious teasing coating his words as he leans in closer.

 

“That depends. What’s your stance on Angels?”

 

“Angels huh? From what I’ve experienced, they’re all dicks.”

 

“I’ve had the same experience. Too bad I’m half of one,” Castiel’s heart is beating a mile a minute. Should he really have told Dean? He’s only known him for a few days, yet he trusts him enough to tell him his biggest secret.

 

Dean leans back so his arm that’s placed on the door frame is straight, making him just an arm length away. The cogs spinning in his head is apparent on Dean’s face. It only takes a moment for the pieces to click into place. “Half? So you're one of those nephilims that I hear so little about.”

 

“One of the few left.”

 

“Guess I’ll have to keep in touch. Here,” Dean fishes out an old receipt from Tuesday from one pocket and a red marker from the other. On the back, he writes his number and name, “call me so I have your number. We could swop info or… maybe… meet up sometime?” Dean looks up at Cas through his lashes. He’s never seen Dean act so timid before and it makes a smile spread on his face.

 

“Did you just ask me out?”

 

Dean can’t meet Castiel’s eyes, “...maybe…”

 

Castiel’s smile widens. “I would love to, Dean.”

 

Dean smirks and huffs a laugh before excusing himself. He backs up to leave, goofily bumping into the railing. “Guess I’m the clumsy one now” he jokes before leaving.

 

Cas calls Dean as soon as his car is out of sight.

 

 

“Hello, Dean.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a second part of this from Dean's POV, but IDK...


End file.
